Mother Teresa and Faith

So, maybe I'm a few days late on this, but I couldn't let it pass without commenting on it.

I heard a piece on the radio Thursday evening. Then I saw the same story, but from a different angle on the Today show. Since have heard it several times, but nothing has been as meaningful (or accurate from a faith perspective) as the first one that I heard.

It’s about Mother Teresa what many are calling her “crisis of faith.” Some even implying that she had no faith (Bill Maher!) That’s not what I hear in her writings. Here is a link to the radio piece that I heard—it really explains it better than anything that I have heard.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=13903581

I thought about what you had said about not “feeling” God. When I read your first email, I immediately thought of what St. John of the Cross called, “The Dark Night of the Soul” which is that feeling of desolation when we aren’t “feeling” God’s presence. Many very faithful persons experience this and most people of faith have doubts. To me, learning that Mother Teresa felt this way for a very long time, shows that even those who are most faithful wrestle with this sense of “feeling” God.

There have been times in my life when God has felt very far away from me. I particularly felt this way when struggling with the grief over my parents deaths with cancer. I went through a very long time of struggle and desolation. What speaks to me most from scripture is actually the book of Job—Job’s faith in God even in the face of adversity. Believing in God, even when everything around him seems to say that God isn’t there, shows Job’s steadfast faithfulness which is actually a better translation of the word that most people have thought of as “patience."

How I desire to have the steadfast faithfulness of Job!